Blair Rejects Attack on His Policy

Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday rejected criticism contained in an unprecedented letter from more than 50 retired British diplomats who said Britain was too closely aligned with American policies in Iraq and Israel that were “doomed to failure.” Blair, however, ruled out sending more troops to Iraq for now, saying Britain already had enough soldiers there “to do the job.”

Blair spoke to reporters after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He indicated that the U.S.-led coalition would somehow have to make up for the 1,300 Spanish troops now being withdrawn from Iraq.

The letter from the former diplomats was issued Monday, sparking a strong reaction in the media and putting Blair back on the defensive against charges that he has been too subservient to President Bush. The former diplomats, many of whom served in the Middle East, seemed most critical of Blair’s support for Bush’s endorsement of a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which calls for unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip while retaining some settlements in the West Bank.

“The international community has been confronted with the announcement by Ariel Sharon and President Bush of new policies which are one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood,” the letter says.

The document also asserts that “there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement” in Iraq and that the U.S. forces there now were using “heavy weapons unsuited to the task at hand” and “inflammatory language” that was causing unnecessary casualties and building up rather than isolating the opposition.

But the prime minister defended keeping 7,500 British troops in Iraq despite the difficulties there, and he denied that Britain had fundamentally shifted from an evenhanded approach in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“It is important that when we look at the problem in the Middle East, we accept that the suffering of the Palestinians is appalling and we need to change that,” he said. “But we also accept that there are innocent Israelis being blown up by bombs and terrorist acts. And therefore we need to bring about a situation in which there is proper security there so that the legitimate demands of the Palestinians can be realized and the security of Israel can be protected.”

On Iraq, Blair urged unity.

“There is only one side to be on and that is on the side of the Iraqi people in their journey to democracy,” he said.

A Foreign Office official, Mike O’Brien, took on the former diplomats’ charges more directly. “We can influence the U.S. But we can’t control a superpower,” he said on BBC radio. “They listen to our quiet diplomacy but they also have their own policy -- we influence each other.”

O’Brien said Britain hadn’t changed its position on the Arab-Israeli problem, noting that all subjects ultimately must be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinians. Referring to the ex-diplomats’ letter, he called it “a cry of frustration that things are not going as quickly as we would all like.”

“They seem to be advocating a policy and [saying] that we should follow it on the Middle East. But we are following it. Then they criticize us for doing it -- so I am not entirely sure where they are coming from.”

Some of Blair’s political opponents were quick to associate themselves with the letter.

“This is a most remarkable intervention in the debate about the Middle East from a group of people who are almost certainly the most expert in Britain on the issue,” said Menzies Campbell, a spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party.

The 52 former diplomats said they had been dismayed by the recent turn of events in the Middle East.

“I think that all of us who signed that letter have the impression that the regional expertise of the Foreign Office wasn’t as fully used as it should have been,” said one signer, Marrack Goulding, a retired ambassador.

At a news conference at Downing Street last week, Blair refused a request to delineate areas in which Britain had managed to move U.S. policy.

“I don’t go through it every day and say, ‘Well, we moved them on this, and we haven’t moved them on that.’ It is not like that and neither should it be like that,” he said. “I believe that any points that we have to make about these things are best made between ourselves rather than grandstanding in public.”

Janet Stobart of The Times’ London Bureau contributed to this report.